


Bringing You Back

by RedfieldandNivans



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), NivanField - Fandom
Genre: Amnesia!Piers, B.O.W. abilities, Chris is finally allowed to visit Piers in the facility, Chris is patient with him, M/M, Not part of the DogTags AU, One-Shot, Piers finally found something he wants to remember. Chris., Piers is sassy and defensive, Piers returns the gesture., Piers' nurse teases him afterward., Post RE6 AU, Scarred!Piers, Super short supervised visit., implied Nivanfield, ongoing...?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5388860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedfieldandNivans/pseuds/RedfieldandNivans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Random Nivanfield Short to help ease the pain of waiting on our other fics to update.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Their first meeting was going to be difficult. He’d been warned. Piers hadn’t seen him since they were separated for medical treatment after Lanshiang several months ago. It was going to be a shock to the ace’s system seeing a familiar face after being secluded for so long. Which was probably why he had only been allotted a few short minutes with him after months of separation. 

Chris decided to ease into their first visit.

“Hi.” He greeted once the security doors opened and Piers took the seat across from him at the stainless steel table.

The holding room was bare save for the cameras in the corners above and a large two-way mirror for the medical staff to continue their vigil over their subject and his visitor. Piers looked more like a prisoner in his standard issue scrub pants than a recovering agent. He wore no shirt and no shoes. A sophisticated looking digital bracelet clung to his left wrist. It wasn’t unlike that of a house arrest alarm except that it wasn’t on his ankle. The damned thing looked similar to the rigged bracelets Claire had described from her own hostage nightmare not too long ago. The similarity made Chris ill. Piers was a hero, not a captive or a test subject.

“Who are you?”

The question drew Chris’ eyes away from the younger man’s wrist. Piers didn’t look impressed by his visitor. In fact, there was no recognition in his eyes whatsoever. The realization that their history together had in fact been erased hit Chris like a sledgehammer to the chest. Though he had been told otherwise, Chris had gone into this visit with the hope that his partner would recognize him to see him.

“I’m…uh…” he hadn’t meant to choke on the next sentence but his throat closed off all on it’s own. “Chris,” he swallowed. “I’m your partner.” Why was this so hard?

The younger man eyed him up and down skeptically.

“My partner?”

A thought must have occurred to him because the marksman’s demeanor changed ever so slightly and that defensive gaze softened enough to allow for a more detailed look at the attractive man in front of him.

“I’m gay?”

Had this been any other situation Chris would have laughed. But he hadn’t had contact with Piers in over two months, they were in a heavily fortified, high security medical facility that technically shouldn’t exist according to official records, and this was far from a private conversation. Nothing about this was funny. If Piers had forgotten the basic characteristics that made him who he was….

Chris tried to hide his worry but he knew it showed. He cleared his throat and pulled a little tighter to the table.

“We’re partners in the field,” he clarified. “You’re a veteran operative with a counter-terror organization funded by the United Nations.”

Was that a flicker of disappointment in those keen hazel eyes? Had Piers been prepared to accept he might be gay? Chris couldn’t tell for sure.

“No shit.” Piers folded his arms defensively. “How many years we served together?" 

“Four years next month.”

Was Piers testing him? Or was this a genuine attempt to collect the missing pieces of his memory? It was unnerving enough to be in this sterile room knowing their every interaction was being recorded, their every movement being studied by a team of medical staff behind the mirror.

“Cool.” Piers feigned disinterest. “And you thought you’d just drop in and say ‘hey’ on your free time?”

Chris blinked at that. “Piers, I haven’t seen you in months. They wouldn’t let me in here until now.”

“ _I don’t even fucking know where ‘here’ is._ ” He snapped unnecessarily. “ _I don’t know what the hell happened to me or who the fuck you really are.”_ The sound of a camera focusing tighter onto him had the ex-sniper relaxing back into the chair he’d jumped out of.

“For all I know you’re lying to me. Everyone else here does.”

Chris just watched him with a pained expression.

“I lost my memory once,” the Captain said quietly after a moment. “For six months I walked around like a dead man, wandering through a war torn foreign country not knowing who I was or caring about a damn thing.”

Piers studied him with his eyes but said nothing.

“ _You_ brought me back." Chris confessed. "You saved my life.”

“Did you _want_ to come back?” Piers looked at his hands thoughtfully. Clearly he’d been thinking deeply about his situation for some time. “Were you happier not remembering? Because I’m not sure I want to know the life I’ve forgotten. And if I were you I’d resent me for hauling you back into _this_.” He gestured to the sterile room and the facility that housed them.

Somewhere above them a buzzer sounded, announcing the end of their brief and highly monitored first visit. 

Chris took in a deep breath. He was annoyed, Piers could tell, but the man didn’t say anything negative about the interruption.

“Guess our time’s up for today,” He rose from his seat as if to go. The fortified doors buzzed open.

A sinking feeling took hold of the younger man as he watched his visitor go. It had him jumping from his chair to say something, _anything_ at all to him before he left.

“Hey Chris?”

The field Captain paused in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be a stranger.”

The open invite was unexpected and it pulled an unchecked smile from the man’s lips. Chris nodded on his way out, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Piers visibly brightened. “I’ll hold you to that--” He shouted as the glass doors sealed shut behind his visitor and the locks buzzed red.

_“…partner.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piers is left alone in the holding room after Chris leaves....or is he? 
> 
> (For those of you who wanted this one-shot to go on a little bit further than I'd intended.)

“You _like_ him, don’t you.”

Piers jumped at the sound of the familiar female voice over the speaker. He had forgotten he was under surveillance. Having a visitor from the outside did that. The few minutes of privacy had been nice even if it had been an illusion.

“He’s my partner,” he reminded the camera sourly. "We work together, that's all."

“So you _do_ believe him."

"Haven't got much else to believe in, so yeah. Looks that way."

"Well if you're not interested in taking him home after all this, I'll take him off your hands."

Piers laughed at that.

_"You fucking fangirl."_

He scoffed outwardly, but the notion that he and Chris shared any connection gave him some kind of butterflies inside. The man seemed larger than life. And if he had saved that guy from his own hell than maybe someone like Chris could do the same for him.... 

The female voice laughed playfully, "Hey, I don't get a lot of eye candy down here, okay? Let me have my fun." 

"Sure."

"So...you remember anything?" The intercom prodded.

_Nope._

"Is that why you let him in here? This another one of your team experiments? You going to watch all this later and study my reactions?"

"You're bitter tonight," came the reply.

“And you're nosy,” Piers moved to lean an arm up on the glass of the two-way mirror and stare through his own reflection until his damaged eye focused on what was beyond the glass.

The nurse he’d come to know as ‘Amanda’ from the name tag on her breast pocket was sitting cross-legged on her computer chair casually filing her nails. She was his favorite night shift supervisor by far. Incidentally, she was also the only staffer who would make small talk with him during her shift. Seeing her alone surprised him. He expected the whole medical team to be there monitoring his little supervised visit.

"It's my job to be nosy. And I'm on your side here! I _want_ you to remember."

"Yeah, well that makes one of us."

Amanda glanced up at the screen in front of her and started when she noticed her subject staring at her through the mirror he shouldn’t be able to see through. She dropped her nail file and hopped out of the chair nervously.

“W-what are you doing?”

If hiding behind her swivel chair wasn’t a giveaway, the slight shake in her voice told him she didn’t approve of what he was doing.

Piers continued to watch her, his forehead pressed against the glass like an unwanted puppy in the front window of a pet store. Although in this case, he was more like a lone animal on display at an underground zoo no one visited.

“Watching you,” he said simply.

“That's not possible. Not even a superhero like you can see through that."

To make a point, he tilted his head to get a better view of her attire through the pane. The room she was in was dark, but the darkness was no match for his right eye.

“Nice skirt.”

Her frightened gasp made him wince.

 _Good job_ , he chastised himself. _Way to sound like a creeper. Couldn’t have commented on her hair or something._

When she reached for the red button on the control desk he backed away from the mirror, hands up in surrender.

“Hey, whoa! I was just guessing! You sound like the kind of girl who dresses up for work, that’s all.”

Judging from the lack of screaming sirens and men in body suits rushing in to sedate him, Amanda hadn’t pushed the emergency button. Yet.

“That’s a pretty good guess, Lieutenant.” She managed to say after composing herself.

Piers let out the breath he’d been holding. It was nerve wracking to always be a hair’s length away from being put down. He wouldn’t mind it so much if the process involved a fair fight once in a while, but the men in lab coats always came in with their security guards; Armored men who seemed to enjoy roughing him up after the complimentary needle stab. When they knew he couldn’t defend himself.

“Sorry if I scared you.”

“You didn’t scare me.” She lied.

Time to stop teasing his keeper. Piers relaxed and sat down on the metal table with a sigh. This time when his eyes met the mirror he studied his scarred reflection. A jagged red mark had taken over a good portion of his face and snaked up across his forehead, cutting through his right eyebrow. The discolored flesh spoke of some traumatic experience his mind had since locked away. The eye that saw through two-way mirrors like windows stared back at him, foreign in shape and slightly discolored.

His partner had seen him like this and didn’t even flinch? Chris was either used to seeing people in his condition or he really cared enough about him to look past his physical appearance. Either way, Chris was fascinating and Piers combed a hand through his hair, wondering if the man would keep his word and come back tomorrow.

“You think I can take a shower?” he asked the mirror. The thought of a clean-shaven, freshly-pressed Chris making a return visit had him suddenly feeling less than presentable.

The lock on the door buzzed green in response.

Hopping off the table, Piers paused to smirk up at the camera closest the door.

“You going to watch?”

The answer came over the intercom in the form of a suggestive, _“Maybe.”_

Not for the first time he considered putting on a show just for her. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Chris visits Piers in the facility he gets a pep talk from his best friend.

**\---- FLASHBACK CHAPTER ----**

 

“Chris, talk to me.”

The rain muffled the concern in her voice as Jill jogged away from the convention center after the man who was trying his best to avoid her.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He didn’t turn around.

“What happened was not your faul--“

“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that line--” Chris cut her off with a wave of a hand. He knew exactly where she was going with this conversation and it was best for them both if he put a stop to it now.

Lightning tore across the deep purple sky above, illuminating the solemn pair and their surroundings as though it were midday and not nine o’clock in the evening. For the first time since the leaders of the North American Branch had arrived –ironically for the Combat & Operational Stress Control seminar- Jill had a chance to talk to her best friend one on one. She had been trying to catch him between seminars and workshops all afternoon, but slipping away from her in a crowd was one of her fellow agent’s many talents.

And now here they were, on the front lawn of the emptying convention center in the middle of a thunderstorm. They hadn’t seen much of each other since Chris had been released from medical care after the Lanshiang attacks and she had the distinct feeling he had been avoiding a moment like this ever since.

Well, if this was to be the setting of their next much needed heart-to-heart then she’d take what she could get.

“Chris, I’m not going to say anything you don’t already know, I’ve come to terms with that. But that’s not going to stop me from trying to help you get through this.”

Her words seemed to weigh him down and after a moment he stopped walking away. She approached him gently, zipping her jacket up as the rain began to intensify around them.

“I don’t need help,” his voice was faint and unconvincing; a haunted whisper in the rain.

She slipped her hand into his. He recoiled slightly at the intimate touch but gave into the gesture. Cold fingers twice the size of her own entwined with hers, giving them a squeeze and making her smile.

“I don’t need help,” he repeated, “I need to turn back time.”

His brows knit together with some indistinct pain and for the hundredth time since he’d come home from China Jill wished she could read her friend’s mind as he stared out at the city below with hollow brown eyes. The rain had flattened his dark bangs to his forehead and his lack of jacket told her he hadn’t planned this spontaneous outing in the storm. The thin fabric of his standard issue tee was already soaked through.

“How far back would you go?” She whispered, probing at the mindset of the man she’d sacrificed herself to save not so many years ago.

More lightning split the sky, followed by a distant rolling of thunder.

It was difficult to stay self-centered with Jill at his side, he realized. She’d been through hell and back too. She’d lost just as much if not more than he had to this job.

“What do you think you could have done differently if you went through all that again, Chris?”

“Knowing what I know now? Everything.”

“There’s no way you could have prevented that missile from detonating over Lianshiang. You were already there doing what you could. You were doing your job, and you were doing it _right_ —“

Chris let go of her hand.

“No, if I’d done it _right_ we wouldn’t be attending this conference without my team. If I’d done it _right_ we wouldn’t have had to add so many good names to the memorial plaques, we wouldn’t have to face so many damaged families. I wouldn’t have intrusive memories of _my men_ melting, _dying_ and turning into the very monsters we’ve trained them to destroy. If I’d done it _right_ Piers wouldn’t be fighting for his humanity right now in a medical _prison._ He wouldn’t be a fucking test subject for our inability to keep up with all these goddamned viruses….”

Jill watched him a moment, not wanting to feed the fire. She swiped away a strand of wet hair from her eyes and waited patiently for him to finish. She wanted to hug him, to reassure him, _something,_ but Chris’ body language told her the last thing he wanted was to be comforted right now. She resorted to hugging her jacket to herself and wondering just how long he’d been burying these feelings.

_“God Jill, I just wish I could bring them back…”_

Chris’ recent self-inflicted isolation and almost careless spontaneity had been behavioral red flags soon after his release from medical care, and she had been asked to keep an eye on the organization’s emotionally wounded Captain, if for no other reason than he was currently considered a potential liability. A ‘ _ticking time bomb’_ as the Director had put it.

Ever since he’d returned home without his second team, Chris hadn’t been the same. The man who came back to them after the C-Virus outbreak was not the Chris Redfield she remembered and it worried her how different he had become over such a short period of time.

It didn’t help that here at the conference the last lecture they had covered today touched on the responsibilities of Small Unit Leaders and their role in controlling Battle Fatigue in their men and women of combat. Chris had been responsible for the stress reactions of two teams in the past year. Two teams of men charged with preventing the latest in a chain of horrific black market viral outbreaks. Two teams that never saw their mission through; men who didn’t come home to their families. That couldn’t be easy to cope with. All she could do was remind him he’d done what he was supposed to.

“What happened out there wasn’t controllable, Chris. Every mission goes to shit out there with no concern for strategy or protocol, you know that. You did what you could given the circumstances and that’s all that was expected of you.”

Chris looked distant. _“You weren’t there….”_

Okay enough of this.

She took a more aggressive stance in front of him, talking directly to his face in a way that always seemed to work on him. Predictably, Chris stepped back in surprise.

“You’re right, I wasn’t there. But I’m here now. And so is First Lieutenant Nivans. So I think your focus right now should be on what you _do_ have, don’t you?”

Chris seemed to return to her at the mention of Piers. He swiped at the corners of his red-rimmed eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “They’re letting me in to see him tomorrow,” he informed her with a small smile.

Her gaze softened at the news, “You ready to see him?”

“As I’ll ever be. They say he still doesn’t remember anything.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and sucked in a shaky breath. “I just want him out of there, Jill. I’ll take him home with me if it means he can leave that place. If he needs to be monitored and taken care of I want to be the one to do it. I owe him that much.”

“Come back inside.” Jill tugged her friend's wet arm in the direction of the conference hall. “You’re freezing and they won’t let you see him if you catch something.”

Chris allowed her to steer him in the right direction.

“...You think he’ll remember me?”

“Chris, you’re kind of hard to forget.” She smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This short chapter has been collecting dust in a folder since it was started so many months ago. I apologize for keeping it there for so long when it should have been published here where it belongs. Bringing You Back is an anomaly in our Nivanfield AUs, and like most of what we do, it was started without any kind of plot in mind or a plan for future chapters....Why, then, am I still coming back to it with a strong sense of attachment...? C.

 

“Did I volunteer for this?” Piers asked quietly, rubbing a hand over the scarred landscape of his right forearm. “Did I sign up for some kind of experimental testing that went wrong?”

The question was like a punch to Chris’ gut.

“You were infected during your last assignment overseas.” Chris corrected him, trying not to look forlorn despite the topic. How could Piers know so little after being in here so long? What _did_ they tell him?

Piers looked doubtful.

“I was with you when it happened,” Chris confirmed.

“Please don’t lie to me.”

There was a sadness in the younger man's tone that spoke of how tired he was of being spoon fed information he had no way to verify.

Chris hesitated to tell him the whole truth, but found he couldn’t justify keeping it from him. It made sense now why they had called on him to see Piers after all these weeks of denying him contact. Their subject, as physically rehabilitated as he seemed to be, was asking too many questions now. Questions the medical staff couldn’t answer. Who better to tell him what really happened to him than the one who was there with him when it did?

“…You infected yourself.” Chris regretted them the moment the words slipped free from his lips.

Piers had nothing to say to that. He did look mildly confused at the news, like he was having a hard time believing he would do something so outlandish.

“You did it to save my life.”

“To save _you_ ,” Piers repeated almost incredulously.

Chris held his gaze as steadily as he could.

“Yes.”

_“Again.”_

Unable to hold back the small smile the recollection enticed, Chris lowered his gaze to the cold metal table between them. “Yeah.” It was true that the marksman had saved him many times over the course of their partnership. This latest incident had really set the record for sacrificial martyrdom though.

“You must be pretty important to me if I’d put myself through this hell for you.”

Piers was giving him that look again. The one Chris couldn’t quite figure out. If he prided himself on how well he could read the sniper after years of working together, that skill failed him now. Either that or this particular look had never been directed at him before.

“I don’t think you expected to—“ The words caught in his throat and Chris coughed to clear it. He couldn’t let Piers see him falter. He was here to be his rock, his support, not to show him how much the incident had affected him.

“-You tried to stay behind. After you became infected,” he continued, choosing his words carefully.

“A martyr.” Piers snorted, sitting back in his chair to process the new information. “So I was supposed to die... Let me guess, you wouldn’t let me go.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Piers opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and fell silent.

Chris ached to tell him everything. To apologize for all the events his young mind had to lock away. He wanted to tell Piers that as Captain _he_ was responsible for all of Piers' recent suffering and that things would have been so very different had he known what they were getting themselves into going down into that underwater facility that night..

But Chris bit his tongue for the hundredth time. As Captain he had his instructions not to tell the Lieutenant too much too fast and so he just sat there feeling inadequate while his partner tried not to show how bad he was hurting on the inside.

The buzzer sounded. It filled the otherwise quiet room and left it just as quickly, leaving behind an obnoxious echo in both men’s ears.

“Guess our time’s up.” Piers tapped the table lightheartedly, he seemed grateful for the interruption. Mismatched eyes made a point of looking anywhere but at the man across from him.

Chris didn’t want to leave it at that. There was always so much more to say. These damned sessions were limiting, and to say it was frustrating was an understatement.

“Piers…I--”

“Good night, Chris.”

The resolution of Piers’ tone had his partner rising reluctantly from the table.

Piers fidgeted with the gadget on his wrist, choosing to focus on it instead of the one leaving him behind again.

“Tomorrow then?” Chris asked. He was always asking permission to return.

Piers didn’t answer him.

When his visitor turned to leave, the sniper sucked in a deep breath and held it. He had so much more he couldn’t bring himself to say. Indecision had Piers rubbing his temples and running both hands down his face when Chris’ back was turned.

The man perplexed him and made him anxious at the same time. Chris practically dripped honesty. Piers wanted to believe every word he said, and yet… their little chats were missing something. Something _meaningful_.

 _Christ,_ he had just been told he tried to sacrifice himself for the guy! He wasn’t expecting a tear or anything, Chris didn’t look the type to break down easily, but would it kill the man to show a little compassion?

They’d spoken a handful of times this past week and Chris returned faithfully each time he said he would, but Piers hadn’t gotten what he wanted out of him. Not by a long shot.

What _did_ he want? For Chris to show some damn _emotion_ for starters. This place was sterile enough as it was. Everyone else in here wore the same mask of complacency and it made Piers feel like he was crazy for feeling at all. It would be great if someone else would just act _human_ for once.

Something small and round in shape slid across the table just before the door locks released. Surprised, Piers looked down at the worn piece of fabric. A badge? He reached out for it and flipped it over in his palm. The thing had seen better days. It almost looked blood spattered.

He looked up to ask what he was holding but Chris was already gone, sealed away by the security locks. That sinking feeling of missed opportunity came rushing back, and Piers found himself once again forced to fight back the strong emotion he didn't understand.  

_“See you tomorrow then…”_ he whispered to himself, thumbing the raised initials of a badge he didn’t recognize.


End file.
